


Soar

by wordsarelifealways



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mental Illness, Slow Burn, amnesiac Thomas, mental illness recovery, trigger warning: suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 21:31:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4977244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsarelifealways/pseuds/wordsarelifealways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After unsuccessfully trying to kill himself Newt successfully landed himself in the psychiatric hospital.  After almost a month of nothing but staring at the walls, someone new is brought into the ward.  Someone who keeps going past Newt's door and disrupting the peace.  It takes a week for Newt to take matters into his own hands to restore the peace.  What starts as a distraction slowly turns into something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ms_Tassimo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Tassimo/gifts).



Newt had been lain up in his hospital bed for a few days now, and he was almost certain he had seen everything the ward had to offer. He’d spent a while counting the tiles on the ceiling, inspecting the flaking paint next to his bed, racing the condensation rolling down the window, and he’d even tried keeping count of the regular drips coming from other boy’s IVs.

And now he was ready to leave.

Except apparently the kid who took a walk off the top of a house doesn’t get to dictate when he goes home. If it wasn’t for the bugger of a cast on his leg he would have just made a run for it, but something told him that he would be an easy catch in a wheelchair.

Newt was in the middle of another condensation race when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, something dark which proved a stark contrast to the bleached white of the walls. Turning his head, Newt pushed a few errant blonde strands out of his face and craned his neck to see who was going by the ward. He’d been there a few weeks and he knew all the faces on his floor.

Except the one walking by the ward entrance.

He was tall and pale, and Newt thought he could see a flash of freckles before the boy was gone. With a sigh, he settled back down into his bed and resigned himself to another round of watching the paint flake off the walls.

New kids showed up on the ward practically like clockwork. This one wouldn’t be any different.

***

A few days later and Newt had seen more of the new kid than he’d seen of the guys he was sharing a room with. The greenie was constantly on the move. At least twice a day Newt watched through the windows in the door as orderlies took the kid back to his own room.

It was never long before he was running across the hall again.

Newt couldn’t deny it: he kind of admired the kid’s guts. Half of them had remarked at one point or another about getting out of this hellhole, but the newbie was the only one who made such an effort for his freedom.

Then again, maybe the kid was just crazy.

Some days he looked frenzied as he tore through the halls and would struggle violently against the orderlies who had caught him, but other days he just looked lost and scared and would flinch away from anyone near him.

Today was one of those days, and the greenie had the bad luck of coming across one of the stricter orderlies, Janson.

“We’ve talked about this, Thomas.” Newt heard the orderly tell the greenie in a clipped tone. “You need to stay in your room for now.” Newt looked up from where he was trying to itch under his cast just in time to see Janson grip Thomas by the bicep and start marching him back the way he had come from. Newt was about to protest when the door opened and a few nurses breezed in as if they weren’t working in the pits.

“He didn’t need to be such a dick to that greenie.” Newt muttered as a nurse checked on his cast.

“To what?” The nurse frowned at him and he glanced back at her.

“The greenie.” Newt nodded towards where Thomas had been just a minute ago.

“Oh! Thomas? What on earth is a greenie?”

“You know: the newbie. The fresh faced one. Freshly committed.” Newt shrugged. “Or freshly sentenced.” He muttered under his breath.

“Why green?”

“Because most of them look green around the gills when they first come in. All small and afraid and sickly like. You can always spot a greenie.”

“Sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this.” The nurse remarked and Newt shrugged.

“Just because I ended up in here doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. Still got a functioning brain, it’s only the leg that broke.” He grumbled as he picked at his blanket. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw the nurse purse her lips, and he had a feeling one of the talks was going to be inflicted on him soon.

“You’re lucky it was only your leg; you fell from a hell of a height. You’re lucky to be alive.” Her tone sounded faintly reprimanding and it got Newt’s back up.

“Do you know what attempted suicide means?” He asked in disbelief. “I didn’t want to live through it. Don’t stand there and call me lucky.” He snapped and the nurse shook her head slightly.

“You have another appointment arranged for Tuesday morning.” Were her parting words and then he was left once again with the flaking paint and wet windows.

***

It had been over a week now, and the novelty of Thomas’ adventures had worn off and Newt was fed up of the way the orderlies were dealing with the greenie. They either marched him back to his room like a prisoner or completely ignored him as he stumbled around looking like a lost dog.

Today seemed to be an ‘ignore the kid until he leaves’ day.

His breaking point, Newt discovered, was watching the greenie go past his door for the third time in under half an hour with a distraught look on his face.

“Isn’t anyone going to help him? I’m gettin’ whiplash watching him go back and forth.” Newt looked around and realised he was probably the only one who had been watching the scenes on the other side of their door. Everyone else seemed far too wrapped up in whatever it was they were doing, which meant Newt was just going to have to deal with this himself.

Grumbling, he leaned over the edge of his bed and grabbed the wheelchair they had left him so he could get to the community area and back. Once he had the chair positioned he manoeuvred himself awkwardly off the bed and onto the chair, wincing when his cast bumped against the floor and sent small tremors up the shattered bone. In hindsight he should have gone for a more foolproof plan than walking off his roof, but in his defence who the hell expects to survive falling almost fifty foot?

Shaking his head to derail that train of thought, Newt began the process of wheeling himself out of the room and into the hall to deal with the greenie situation that everyone else seemed intent on ignoring until it went away. It took him a few tries to get through the heavy doors, but finally he was out in the hallway and looking up at the greenie who seemed on the verge of a panic attack.

“Hey, kid, you gotta get a grip on this.” Newt said as he rolled to a stop. A jolt went through Thomas when Newt spoke and he whirled around, his eyes panicked and his chest still heaving.

“You talking to me?” Newt winced; the kid sounded as if he had been screaming himself hoarse for days. Hell, maybe he had.

“You see anyone else out here causing a scene? Yes, I’m talkin’ to you, greenie. You gotta try to keep it together or they’re just going to drug you up to your eyeballs to keep you out of their hair.”

“My name’s not greenie.” Thomas retorted instantly.

“No?” Newt replied, watching the boy closely. His chest was moving slower, so the possibility of Newt having to see someone through a panic attack was decreasing with each breath. “What is your name then?”

“Thomas. My name is Thomas.” Newt watched as the boy sucked in another deep breath and slowly let some of the tension melt from his frame.

“Alright, Thomas, I’m Newt. Care to tell me why you’ve been running up and down this place like a mad man?” Newt asked, ignoring the scowl one of the nurses walking by gave him. He’d been talked to twice about using ‘derogatory’ language about the other inpatients, but he couldn’t care less. No one but the staff seemed to care about it.

“Gotta get out.” Thomas muttered, tugging his fingers through his hair and looking around.

“You’ve only just got here and you’ve spent the whole time trying – and failing, I’ll remind you – to escape. They aren’t going to let you waltz out. You think we’d all be in here if they just let people leave when they wanted to?” Newt raised an eyebrow. “You might have fallen into the mad house but we’re not idiots here, greenie.”

Thomas was blinking quickly and looking at Newt with a look of surprise on his face.

“Ever since I got here people have been talking to me like I was five. No one’s telling me anything. All that rat faced guy tells me is that I’m supposed to be in my room.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the world of psychiatric care.” Newt rolled his eyes. “We’d have put a banner up for our guest of honour but they’d only think we were going to hang ourselves with it, so you’ll just have to accept this as the welcome wagon.” Newt held his arms out mockingly and got a choked laugh out of Thomas.

A pang of sympathy went through Newt at the sound. He remembered his first few days vividly: a never ending cycle of screaming at the doctors for saving him and begging for someone to finish the job he’d fucked up.

“Look,” Newt took a breath. “I know this place sucks. Try and get some sleep tonight, don’t put yourself on the orderlies radar again, and tomorrow I’ll give you the guided tour, huh?” Newt wasn’t even sure why he was offering that, there was just something about the frightened and defeated look of this greenie that didn’t sit right with him.

“You’d- yeah! Please!” Thomas nodded frantically. Alright then. Looked like Newt had plans for the day for the first time since he’d been admitted.

“Alright. You behave yourself tonight and I’ll meet you here after breakfast.” Newt told him as he ran his hands over the spurs of the wheelchair. He was still trying to get used to the damn thing.

“Th- thanks, Newt.” Thomas called after him as Newt wheeled around and went back to his flaky paint.

“Just behave, greenie.” Newt looked back over his shoulder, getting a last look at Thomas before the door swung shut behind him.

For the first time since Newt had spotted the latest greenie, the kid had neither the frantic crazy eyes nor the lost frightened look. Something about that made Newt smile. It was faint, and it was brief, but it felt like the first smile his face had managed in a while.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at whoismisha.tumblr.com


End file.
